Legal Enforcement Of Morality On The Law And Economics

The most famous and representative debate about legal enforcement of morality isbetween Devlin and Hart,which is caused by the Wolfenden Report. In the view of Devlin,individual activities not only the personal affairs but also the social behaviors.Moralityexists in the interpersonal process.So morality can not be divided into private or public.Theexistence of the society is rely on the maintenance of the public morals.Lacking of thepublic morals are always the first step of social breakdown.It is the responsibility of thelaw to impose sanctions on immoral activities.But the point of Hart is that the immoralactivities do not cause harm to others are personal affairs.Individuals have the right to useit freely,it is not the jurisdiction of the law.The distinction between public morality andprivate morality is whether causing injury to others or not,it is also the reason to restrictindividual activities.The harm principle off Mill and Bentham’s utilitarian are the toolsHart used to critique Devlin’s social collapse theory,and justified his views are lack ofempirical basis.The criticism of legal enforcement of morality has been on foundation of the viewof Hart and deepen it. Focused on the argument of reasonability, give few attention on therealistic possibility. These are two very important issues. From a practical operabilityangle,applying economical theory especially the Cost-effective,marginalbenefit,opportunity cost to analysis the enforcement of moral.Providing a realistic basis ofthe criticism of that debate.